I missed this piece from @chrisgrey.bsky.social last Friday. Brexit & Brexitism: Enemies within and without chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2026/01/enem... Prof Grey reminds us what an utter disaster Farage as PM would be. The consequences would make Brexit look like a minor admin problem.

X stopped working as a real social media channel for a wide range of users about a year ago.

Thread. Live reporting from there Farage/Jenrick press conference. Worth reading to the end. Farage has already extracted Jenrick's soul.

The National Trust is halfway to their appeal to buy Giant Hill, one of the UKs top butterfly sites, also rich in insects and flowers. The last good habitat for Duke of Burgundy in Dorset. Please donate if you can @nationaltrust.org.uk www.nationaltrust.org.uk/support-us/a...

more like defecations. 💩

Fingers Crossed.

Ideally, Jenrick's response should be more damaging (even inadvertently) to Reform, than to the Tories.

Ah yes. Nick "multiculturalism has failed" Timothy.

Latest: Robert "white face" Jenrick seen with advisors

Good news for Dorchester. Access for all arrangements at Dorchester South station progress to detailed design. www.gov.uk/government/s...

Not the main item here, but notable how muddled this is. Starmer's toxic attack doesn't quiet contradict No.10's open borders attack, but it comes from a completely different political space. As ever, the govt has no underlying values, no message discipline, no professionalism in its communications.

Listening to the excellent, chilling The Gasman on BBC sounds. Reminded me my great grandfather Albert was injured by mustard gas in 1917, on the Menin Road. He recovered well enough to have a life and a family, but was dead at 58. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

NASA say that the crew member who was ill and returned to earth is doing well and now having a meal with colleagues.

The most that could be said is that she's limited the damage. (And has the party's polling - as distinct from her personal polling, a little - actually improved?)

Russia hasn't failed. It's got Trump to do its dirty work.

Hmm. In Offord's maiden House of Lords speech in 2021, he spoke in support of the UK's #netzero objectives. Offord's going to have to perform some fairly spectacular political gymnastics to show he's abandoned this sort of politics, now he's a head honcho for the climate-denying Reform party.

The sane wing of the Conservative party only covers about 10 MPs. They got rid of all the sane ones during the endless Brexit wars.

🔴 Last week the Free Speech Union got a High Court writ to prevent the publication of a list of its donors So we decided to investigate who *does* fund Toby Young's outfit Wanna see? 🫣 New on Democracy for Sale: democracyforsale.substack.com/p/who-funds-...

“The Free Speech Union’s commitment to free speech would seem to end where transparency about itself begins.” @petergeoghegan.bsky.social and @mc00.bsky.social blow the lid off the backers of Toby Young’s outfit: https://democracyforsale.substack.com/p/who-funds-the-free-speech-union-toby-young

Here’s my original story. Recycling rare earth magnets youtu.be/pcWsvjweBoA?...

😂

While purporting to care deeply about the funding of other organisations and the importance of free speech, Lord Young's FSU won't reveal who funds the er ... Free Speech Union Excellent work from @petergeoghegan.bsky.social democracyforsale.substack.com/p/who-funds-...

It's not unusual for our fence to "breathe" in the sun after a wet previous day then a frost overnight. But yesterday morning's was something else.

"Lord" Toby Young's Free Speech Union's donors database was hacked, but it would be contempt of court to reveal who they are. However the brilliant @petergeoghegan.bsky.social Democracy for Sale has done its own investigation. Dark funded by Tufton Street? Indeed. open.substack.com/pub/democrac...

The CMI has released its analysis of 2025 mortality in England & Wales. Death rates for 2025 were nearly 2% lower than 2024, the previous record low. Death rates improved (i.e. fell) for both sexes and in all age groups between 2024 and 2025.

2025 was an exceptional year for the Earth's climate ⬆️ Warmest ocean heat content ⬆️ Tied as second warmest surface temps ⬆️ Second warmest troposphere ⬆️ Record high sea level and GHGs ⬇️ Record low winter Arctic ice New State of the Climate over at Carbon Brief: www.carbonbrief.org/...

Just wondering whether Trump wants Greenland because "it's got loads of ICE", and he's misunderstood.

The letter from Bill and Hillary Clinton to James Comer explaining their refusal to testify in his Epstein investigation is really remarkable, not like any letter of this genre I've seen. It's signed by them, not a lawyer, and the arguments are not legal ones. Reprinted from their X account:

Safe to say most scientists, and I think most journalists, disagree with his a view. Good journalism should do its best to represent what science says, rather than treat it as a debate where every view is equally valid and readers just need to figure it out.

This is now mind numbingly obvious. Yet the media, especially the BBC, choose to ignore it and continue with this fake neutral "both sides" stuff. Trump says or does something mad, at clear odds with NATO's interests, or the UK's interests, and we're told "oh but it might work out well for us" arghh

Disliked? Can't be trusted? Never in your constituency? Come and join Reform - you'll be perfect a fit!

Absolutely normal for a democracy to ban museum exhibitions that express “improper ideology”. And in no way reminiscent of either Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy or totalitarian Communist Soviet Union.

Britain on brink of going to IMF latest.

Reform has offered to pay for heating his stables.

And this:

Just thought I'd post this:

One for @markhamillofficial.bsky.social Intergalactic Lefty bedwetters like Luke Skywalker are so deranged by hatred of the Empire they are blind to the fact that, from Alderaan to Hosnian, they are on the side of the good guys - and Darth Vader is making the Galaxy a safer place

it's always worth reminding ourselves which Empire Trump is nodding to, when he says these things

2025 was the hottest year on record for ocean heat content. Unfortunately, we now say this every year. 🥹 "In addition to setting a new record in 2025, the global ocean continues to show sustained and intensified warming." + #OpenAccess Study: doi.org/10.1007/s003... + Data: www.ocean.iap.ac.cn

Stewart Lee's latest offering for @thenerve.news explores Trump's invasion of Venezuela and his threats on Greenland. He poins out that the USA has a long history of invading its Latin American neighbours, but in the past has made up excuses. Trump doesn't bother. www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...

They used Grok to write the reply

Trump knows perfectly well he has no morality.

Technically the threshold for "bomb cyclogenesis" of an Atlantic storm is a 21mb drop over a 24 hour period, at our latitude of 50°N. The pressure here has dropped 24 mb in 11 hours, from 730am. And it's still going down. #StormGoretti

I suppose we should be grateful that Evan Davies described the Heritage Foundation as a "conservative think tank", when interviewing Lora Ries about the murder of Nicole Good by ICE agents. The stream of lies and invective from Ries washed over Davies, who was totally incapable of challenging it.

Another eight pupils at Nigel Farage's school accuse him of racism. One says he was called a "Paki" and told to "go back home" by Farage, who was three years older than him. New names say they spoke up after being angered by Farage's denials www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” —George Orwell (1984)

"Thirty-four school contemporaries of Nigel Farage have now come forward to claim they saw him behave in a racist or antisemitic manner, raising fresh questions over the Reform leader’s evolving denials." www.theguardian.com/politics/202...